Will the omega 8000 discriminate steel or tin old coke bottle caps?

[terry-cola]

The reason I'm asking is because I'm planning to buy an omega. I know of a place that is contaminated with old rusted tin coke bottle caps and my ace registers them as coins. I guess this has to do with their rounded shape, I saw the impressive you tube videos where the coin is placed under lots of iron nails and still is being picked up. In this place I have found a 1907 barber silver dime, a 1942 silver 10 centavos and a 1888 too. Also several copper late 1800's coins. Also. there are infinetely many war relics from the Mexican revolution of 1910, I even found fragments of cannon balls and musket balls. So, if you have any comments please share them since I'm planning to go back next year to this place.

 

[earthmansurfer]

Personally I think it has problems with bottle caps. I know if you turn the coil on it's side and sweep the target that way it might break up and not beep. I haven't had that much luck with that but I don't dig bottle caps. Outside of the coil sideways trick, I'm pretty sure you can't really tell.

The T2 had a mode (3b) for checking bottle caps and it worked well. I don't mind digging the occasional one, but if you are hunting infested sites, try what I mentioned and see if it works. Basically you hold the detector so the side of the coil is towards the target, kind of sideways. If anybody remembers that better than me, please chime in.

That said, the Omega gets incredible depth, within a couple inches of top end detectors and it's amazing in iron, also performing near and in some cases better than, top end machines imo. Very fast recovery speed as well, just next to the T2.

 

[Monte]

The good old TR-Discriminators did an excellent job of knocking out a lot of trashy as they had true, progressive discrimination characteristics. Today's motion discriminators, however, are challenges due to the lower operating frequencies combined with the required motion rejection and the problems of handling that type of junk. It's that way with all of them regardless of the manufacturer, but you can 'classify' targets that are likely bottle caps (or similar types of small rusty junk).

I figured the challenge out in the late '70s, but even more so employed techniques I started instructing in seminars since '81. Not only are the two techniques easy to use on what are typically shallow bottle caps, but you can have some fun with it, too.

Back in late '87 I was working for Compass Electronics as their marketing Rep and took one of the new Scanner XP Pro's on a club member outing. The site was Balm Grove, and old picnic site that I figured would be loaded with bottle caps but hold some coins. My goal? Find coins and ignore spending time with bottle caps. I wanted to make sure their new detectors worked okay and I recovered the first two targets that I suspected to be bottle caps, and they were. I was done with them now.

Two of the club members, both using high-end White's detectors, were curious about any new-model entry so they watched to see how I did. Well, I knew they were curious and when I located a suspected target that gave me a good hit, I checked it and decided it was likely another BC and not a coin. I walked on. As I searched I encountered quite a few probable bottle caps and checked them and moved on to find a good number of coins, to include my share (and some of others) of silver dimes and quarters. I also noted that as I detected on these two would move in where I was. sweep over the good-sounding target and then recover it. After a while one approached me and mentioned I had walked past some signals. I told him they were bottle caps or rusty tin and that I saw them recover them.

Well, he confirmed what I had decide as they were bottle caps, then he asked me how I knew that. I told him it was simple, I just used "Quick-Out" and "EPR" as I glanced at the new model. He said, "Oh." A few moments later they asked what that was (maybe thinking it was a new circuit design) and I then showed them how I did it.

Some models have had good Bottle Cap rejection, such as the White's 5900 and 6000 Di Pro's and the XL Pro and the XLT, to name three of their models, and the T2 has the 3b Tone function that sort-of works. Personally, I don't care for the 3b function as it seems to throw some good targets off a bit on occasion. Instead, I just use the techniques I used and taught for year. The Teknetics' Owner's Manuals provide a comment about how to handle them, and this is similar to the EPR (Edge Pass Rejection) techniques I've employed for for over 30 years now.

You can go to our website at www.ahrps.org and click on the Tips & Techniques section and print out this information under Audio Target Classification(ATC). I used it a lot with non-display models in the past, but it does help provide you with a good 'Iron' read-out on Bottle Caps and similar ferrous-based junk. By the way, my main-use detectors are the Tek. Omega w/10" coil and the G2 w/5" DD coil and I keep the 11" DD mounted on a lower rod for quick use. I have a T2 but might let it go since I spend far more time with the Omega and G2 and some others. With all of them including my Omega, it is quite easy to check targets like Bottle Caps. I will remind readers, however, that Double-D coils do have a bit more challenge with all iron rejection and that includes the pesky caps.

The reason I'm asking is because I'm planning to buy an omega.

Trust me, and other followers of the Omega's great performance, it is well worth every penny spent. Probably one of the best dollar-value detectors on the market today, and even better since the field performance it terrific!

I know of a place that is contaminated with old rusted tin coke bottle caps and my ace registers them as coins.

While stuck in a populated metro area I do a loot of 'city-type' coin hunting but try to single out vacant lots, building tear-down and older demolition sites, sidewalk and street renovation, and many other places to hunt that scare away many beginners. They are sites with a lot of nails, bottle caps, small rusty tin and all sort of junk. I deal with them two ways. one, I use the techniques I mentioned that are proven through the years, and I almost always use a smaller-than-stock search coil, favoring the 5" DD in these trashier spots.

I guess this has to do with their rounded shape,

Just being a magnetic hunk of crud makes them somewhat easy to reject, but when we get ferrous targets that are shaped by man, we have some challenges. They might be a low-conductive iron or ferrous object, but if they are shaped, or re-shaped, they then have more conductive properties we have to deal with. Yes, their shape it part of the problem, but good techniques put them in their place. Not deep bad targets, but most are surface to maybe 3" or so and that's well within the detector's ability to deal with them.

I saw the impressive you tube videos where the coin is placed under lots of iron nails and still is being picked up.

Usually easy to do with an old TR. Sometimes possible with a few motion-based Discriminators, but don't put a lot of faith in it. To learn what can and can't work in iron trash, I refer people to my Nail Board Performance Test (which you can also click on and print out). I used this yesterday after our monthly Detector Owners Rendezvous as we then had a detecting outing. Some detectors will hit on coins directly under a nail (with the nail resting on top of the coin), or sometimes positions directly between the iron nails. This is fine, if you hunt a site like a lot of the ghost towns I like to work in Utah and Nevada and Wyoming and other places, but not so well if the good targets are positioned deeper than the shallower junk. that includes iron nails and bottle caps and all manner of trash.

In this place I have found a 1907 barber silver dime, a 1942 silver 10 centavos and a 1888 too. Also several copper late 1800's coins. Also. there are infinitely many war relics from the Mexican revolution of 1910, I even found fragments of cannon balls and musket balls. So, if you have any comments please share them since I'm planning to go back next year to this place.

Suggestions:

1.. Keep that and similar places in your sights as it sounds like a place I'd like to visit.

2.. Outfit yourself with a good working detector, such as the excellent Omega.

3.. Make sure you get a smaller coil to use the the trashier areas, and that would be the round 5" DD coil.

4.. Spend some time this winter learning the Omega and coils and then use it all you can to master it to be ready to visit that site next year.

Best of success to you in the year to come.

Monte

 

[Bill_S]

I do not think it would be possible. They usually come up as a quarter on my omega and that is with the DD coil. I have found a trick to help ID the bottlecaps for what they are.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GM0Jyz8m1KA

 

[earthmansurfer]

EXCELLENT ARTICLE Monte. (I'm talking about the linked article) Really well done and thanks for sharing that with us.

Must read guys...

 

[Cal_Cobra]

Unfortunately the Omega (at least with the 11" DD coil) has an affinity for crown caps.

Apparently the T2 using the BC mode ignores them with the 11" DD, not so using the BC mode on the F75.

It would be great to see FT leverage the BC code from the T2 on their other machines because they sure suck to dig up.

 

[earthmansurfer]

I did try what Monte suggested (using the rear of the coil) on the first cap I dug (didn't think to try it before I dug as I rarely dig them). Out of the ground the signal broke up. I didn't dig another bottle cap but a small piece of metal, made from iron, did also break up in the ground with the rear of the coil test. I started checking other targets and targets without iron did not break up (they were trash though unfortunately).

Thanks again Monte for that suggestion in the link, works.